


Nobody

by LotusFlair



Series: 14 Labors [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Some angst, Statement Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23484151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LotusFlair/pseuds/LotusFlair
Summary: Statement of Joanna S. Blackwood regarding her fathers and growing up in a post-Apocalyptic world. Statement written and submitted to the Usher Foundation. A copy has been translated and submitted to the Pu Songling Research Centre.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: 14 Labors [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689529
Comments: 10
Kudos: 106





	Nobody

Where do I begin?

I suppose the beginning works best, but that always makes for a dull story. My Dad's a writer, you see - poetry, mainly - and he likes to play with expectation when he writes something new. He says it's about creating an experience, a chance to wake up the senses. An opening line is as much of an introduction as a handshake and it's important that the reader gets a good look at you before they dive into the work. I've never been much of a writer, so I guess I favor my Papa in that regard. I'm much more...organized, tidy. If you want chaos, then you'll have to talk to my brother but good luck getting him to sit still long enough to form a coherent sentence let alone write his life story and our family's...predilection for the supernatural. I think he's in Cuba right now on a Leitner recovery and he was in Germany three weeks ago and Thailand a month before that. Me? I've barely strayed outside of England, if I can help it. I like consistency. I like stability. But that's not what you want me to write about.

So, let's start at the beginning.

There was an Apocalypse. I know it's taboo to talk about, but in my family we were taught to acknowledge the darkness surrounding our past history. There was an Apocalypse and then there wasn't. There was an Eye watching over us, ever-present and ceaseless, and then there wasn't. There was a building known as the Magnus Institute and then there wasn't. My father, Jonathan Sims, was the Archivist for the Magnus Institute. He spoke the words that unmade reality through the sinister machinations of Jonah Magnus masquerading as Elias Bouchard, Director of the Magnus Institute and Scion of the Eye. Several months later, the Archivist remade our world into what it had been before. He spoke the words again to repair what he'd unwillingly broken.

He was dead until he wasn't.

As with most large-scale atrocities, there's the matter of collateral damage and collective trauma. Some people moved on while others sank into the mire of a depressive pursuit for answers and guidance. The amount of religious fervor and cult development from those early years after the Event, as it was dubbed, isn't surprising but still worrisome if one dares to look deeper. My birth parents were likely among any one of these groups or participants in the lonely task of sorting their lives out without a rudder. For whatever reason, they decided I was not a responsibility they wanted to partake in, but as luck would have it they happened to be neighbors with Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood. Papa Knew of their intentions and stepped in without hesitation. He compensated my birth parents on the condition that they kindly evacuate their flat and move somewhere else. Apparently they were more than happy to leave. So, at the tender age of six months, I became Joanna Simone Blackwood though I have no idea when the paperwork actually made it legal. Sometimes I wonder what my original name was and who I might've been wearing her identity. I know Papa would tell me if I asked, but I don't. My curiosity extends only so far and it doesn't help me to dwell on something so inconsequential.

Obviously, I was named for my Papa. According to him, Dad insisted on it after he insisted on giving me Dad's surname because it sounded better. It's a terrible lie. Papa's always felt rather poorly about his legacy. He's always believed the worst about himself and what others think of him. As a child it was difficult to understand why his smiles rarely reached his eyes, so I dedicated quite a lot of time between the ages of five and ten trying to make him happy.

"Don't worry about me, Jo-Jo," Papa said. "Everything you do brings me joy."

Parents rarely understand the depth of emotions their children have for their well-being. Needless to say, I still devote a significant amount of time to making sure my fathers have more than one reason to smile during the day. It's what they deserve and what they're owed by the world they saved. But, I digress. I told you I'm not a good writer.

I have and always will be loved. I learned that lesson everyday and my fathers never hesitated to tell me as such. Their own childhoods were lonely and unpleasant - stepping stones to what eventually trapped them at the Magnus Institute. Having each other, myself and, eventually, my brother gave them the opportunity to give and receive the love they'd both craved most of their lives. Dad always teased Papa that love saved the day, but...he wasn't entirely wrong. I won't capitalize it like it's a thing in its own right, but we all know how strong emotions affect the Entities. That my fathers are even here is a testament to how strong their love is.

That's not to say things have always run smoothly in our home. Despite his distancing from the Eye, Papa continued to suffer from horrific nightmares. Whether they were a punishment for ending Beholding's short-lived ascension or just his traumatized psyche, he still ended up screaming at odd hours of the night. I remember sneaking out of bed and listening at their bedroom door. Papa was crying and Dad was trying his best to comfort him. They tried to be quiet, for my sake, but that kind of fear is hard to quell in the heat of the moment. It's too raw to process and there were many nights where I was privy to whole conversations at maximum volume as they sorted it out. Papa's most consistent dream is of the Silenced - the authors of statements burned away when the Magnus Institute was destroyed. Their shadows remain, but he can never recover them. His salvation meant their destruction and he's never quite forgiven himself for that decision despite the reassurances from Dad that they did the right thing.

Sometimes Papa would recover quickly from his dreams, falling asleep in Dad's arms out of sheer exhaustion but still able to greet the new day with some measure of vigor. Other times, though, the dreams were so potent he stayed in bed for days at a time. His migraines often coincided with those episodes so the curtains were drawn, the lights turned out, and Dad tried his best to keep the noise level down. Having children made the last task nearly impossible. I was never content to let either of my parents suffer so I often found myself sneaking into their bedroom and observing Papa's condition for myself. He Knew I was there - because of course he did - and after a few minutes of him pretending not to notice my mostly quiet surveillance he'd pull back the duvet and wait for me to climb into the bed.

"Are you hurting, Papa?" I'd ask. He'd smile and kiss my forehead.

"Better now that you're here," he'd reply.

Dad has so many pictures of Papa and I napping through his convalescence. Only my fiance has seen them and they're sworn to secrecy.

And what of my Dad, I can hear you asking. How has Martin Blackwood fared in the last few decades?

As I said at the start of this exercise, Dad's a writer. He'd already self-published a book of poems before I came around. I believe it was titled _A Fearful Song_ , which Papa claims was the least pretentious title they could agree on for the book. I found the original list in one of Dad's journals and I can say, with some authority, that Papa's right. It took Dad a few years to find his voice as a writer, but once he did it wasn't unheard of for our family to sync up holidays with book signings. He hasn't broken through with any of the big publishers, but he has a decent sized following of people eager to read his poems or pick up the next novella in his _Storm & Stress _series. Papa took advantage of those trips to keep in contact with any local Eye-related personnel. Funny how there was always a fire at a hitherto unknown archives or library upon our arrival or well after we'd gone home. I like to keep that tradition alive as much as possible. I may not've inherited Dad's writing skills, but I'm well known in some circles for having a modestly supplied go-bag for the purposes of arson thanks to him.

I should mention my brother, shouldn't I? I'm sure you're curious about him. Unlike me, Timothy James Blackwood unexpectedly arrived by way of Papa's encounter with the Dark while in Switzerland. The Divine Host had an established compound outside Geneva and Papa, along with Daisy and Basira, went to investigate it. I was seven at the time and I remember the look on Dad's face when Papa left. Worry. Fear. Uncertainty. He tried to hide it, but every day that passed meant another day for him to wonder whether or not Papa was coming home. Based on the stories they've shared in the past, Dad had good reason to worry. Papa wasn't the most cautious of men in his younger years. But twelve days later Papa returned and with him was TJ, a giggling little thing of only four months who managed to be just outside the blast radius of the Dark's failed attempt to use the Large Hadron Collider. His birth parents were either unwilling participants or acolytes of the Divine Host. TJ never asked so I can only speculate.

Through TJ I got to witness my fathers in the same way my Aunties, Georgie and Melanie, likely observed them with me. That same outpouring of love was in full force as they cooed and cuddled TJ, treating him like something precious enough to warrant love and attention. I think I took to being a big sister rather well, though I'm sure TJ has a very different take on what it was like growing up together. Like most siblings we fought, but we were also quick to make up. The worst it ever got was when he left school to chase after Leitners with Daisy and Basira. It was hard on Papa and Dad to watch him entering a world they thought he'd been saved from. I couldn't tell you my brother's reasoning behind the decision. He'd always had a kinship with Daisy, maybe because she's the one who initially found him. All I know is that he wants to do good in the world and the fewer Leitners there are to worry about, the better we all are. Still, there were a few years where we didn't talk and the most I heard from him was a post card on my birthday and a terse check-in at Christmas. We're good now. I think.

I guess that means I'm to expound on my reasons for entering our "family business" as it were. I stayed out of it for as long as I could, but Papa saw my trajectory clearer than anyone. You see, I studied linguistics at university. I take to languages well. They just click somewhere in my brain and before I know it I'm speaking and writing Portuguese or Urdu or Japanese with very little instruction. It's why I was able to translate my statement into Cantonese and Mandarin as well as a number of other languages to be distributed to the other minor institutions that fancy themselves next in line to win the Eye's favor. 

**_Stop. Now._ **

While you still can.

I intercepted your missives, your puzzles written in dead languages amid ciphers in scripts long since past their life expectancy. You can't win. You won't win. My fathers and my aunts worked too hard, sacrificed too much of themselves, for you to ruin it with a compulsory desire to prostrate yourself before an incomprehensible and chaotic essence of fear. You can no more contain it than a bottle can contain the ocean. And if you think I can't make good on my threats, then you haven't been paying attention.

Your last communique, this one was in Mazovian, concerned the resurrection of a certain annex in Cairo. The decrepit corpse of a withering archivist will offer you no answers. His sanctuary, his tomb, will never provide the answers you seek nor the base of operations for a new world of fear and insanity. He is gone. Dead in the very literal sense. And whatever artifacts and ancient words you hoped to find are merely a smoldering pile of ash.

Your envoy as well. She had a name. You'd do well to remember it and why it is no longer attached to its owner.

My fathers' legacy stands. **_Do not pursue this path._**

There is only death.

I don't need to wax poetic about any other exploits in which I've participated, do I? I'm sure you've read the other accounts. Just know that Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood are happy. They saved the world. They have a family. They've earned their rest, but it will not come to them easily. They're not alone in this, not by a long shot.

My brother and I are more than ready to take up the fight. We might even bring it to you.

Statement ends.


End file.
